The 500 - 123 - Run DMC - Raising Hell

I was inspired by a podcast called The 500 hosted by New York-based comedian Josh Adam Meyers. His goal, and mine, is to explore Rolling Stone Magazine's 2012 edition of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

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Album #: 123
Album Title: Raising Hell
Artist: Run DMC
Genre: Hip Hop, Rock Rap
Recorded: Chung King Studio, New York, New York

Released: May, 1986
My age at release: 19
How familiar was I with it before this week: Quite
Is it on the 2020 list? Yes, at #209, Dropping 86 places
Song I am putting on my Spotify Playlist: Walk This Way

Album cover for Run-DMC's, Raising Hell.

Raising Hell was the third record from American Hip-Hop pioneers Run-DMC. It became their second of two records to make The 500 chart. Their self-titled debut at #242, and I wrote about it in October, 2023. In that post, I shared some information about their history and my earliest exposure to the hip-hop genre.

Album cover for Run DMC's self-titled first release.

Although Run-DMC had been recording since 1983 and began releasing albums the following year, my friends and I remained unaware of the trio until they swamped our radars with their genre-bending re-make of Aerosmith’s 1975 hard‑rock song Walk This Way. To say Run-DMC’s version took over the summer and early fall of 1986 would be an understatement. It was unavoidable. The track blasted from car radios and battered cassette decks slung over the shoulders of high-schoolers and pre-teens. It seemed to air on Canada’s MuchMusic television station almost hourly, becoming indelibly stamped on my memory. To this day, when I hear it I am transported back to 1986 when the song  became a significant piece of my mental soundtrack.

Album jacket for the single, Walk This Way, by Run DMC

With time and maturity, I can emphatically declare I now prefer the Run‑DMC version over the original by Aerosmith, although as teenagers my friends and I weren’t nearly so generous. We mistakenly believed the hip‑hop trio from Queens was “stealing” the earlier riff we loved.

As self‑styled rockers growing up in the predominantly white city of London, Ontario, we were generationally and geographically removed from hip‑hop. We didn’t recognize it as a rising art form, nor did we understand the concept, or legality, of borrowing and interpolating riffs and samples from the works of others.

As we edged toward our twenties, I think we felt a bit threatened, even left behind, by this new sound. To us, the song seemed as though Run‑DMC was trying to cash in on a great piece of someone else’s achievement. We considered it wrong and unfair. However, I would later learn that the “borrowing” is permissible and compensated.

A screen capture from the Walk This Way video. In the shadowy
background is Jason, "Jam Master Jay" Mizell. At front, from left
to right are Joseph "Run" Simmons, Steven Tyler, Darryl "DMC"
McDaniels and Joe Perry on guitar.

Truth be told, the picture does not reveal the whole story about the recording. Two members of Aerosmith – singer Steven Tyler and guitarist Joe Perry – actually needed a Walk This Way collaboration far more than Run-DMC. It would serve to revitalize their careers. In 1986, Aerosmith was struggling. Badly. By the mid‑’80s, the group were starting to be seen as washed-up, "has-beens". They were battling declining sales, internal instability, and addiction issues. Their recent albums were underperforming, they had lost cultural relevance, and the band was no longer a major commercial force.

Aerosmith's 1985 release, Done With Mirrors, was a commercial
failure for the once reliable group.

Conversely, Run‑DMC were entering 1986 on the verge of a historic breakthrough. They were already hip-hop’s hottest group, and culturally ascendant. They had strong sales from their first two albums – the aforementioned debut and King of Rock from1985 - had made them a global hip-hop phenomeno. Their third album, Raising Hell, was already shaping up to be a major success. Run‑DMC did not need rescuing and, rumour has it, they nearly declined the opportunity to record the Aerosmith cover.

Members of Run DMC and Aerosmith in the studio, on
March 9, 1986, when Walk This Way was recorded.

I've been trying to figure out why I now like the Run-DMC version of Walk This Way better, and I think it comes down to the guitar playing of Perry and the incendiary solo that finishes the five-minute song. Comparing the guitar solo in Aerosmith’s 1975 Walk This Way to Perry’s re-recording for Run‑DMC’s 1986 crossover smash is a bit like comparing two eras of music history.

Joe Perry (1986)

The original Perry guitar solo on Walk This Way, found on Aerosmith’s Toys in the Attic (#229 on The 500) is longer, looser, and unmistakably rooted in the band’s  blues‑rock swagger. It has a raw, improvisational grit typical of their mid‑’70s peak. By contrast, Raising Hell producer Rick Rubin has said  the Run‑DMC version needed a tighter, more streamlined solo. It had to be "one that could live inside a hip-hop arrangement without derailing its rhythmic momentum."

Album cover for Aerosmith's Toys In The Attic record. (#229 on The 500).

And that intentional refinement wasn’t accidental. Rubin pushed Perry hard during the 1986 session. As Rubin recalled, Perry’s first attempt didn’t cut it. Rubin told him directly that he didn't think it was great. Punctuating the criticism by saying; "I feel like you could do better!’’ It was only after that blunt assessment that Perry delivered the final take, one that was shorter, sharper, and engineered to serve Rubin's radically new context.

Rick Rubin (1986).

From Perry’s perspective, the collaboration was far more than a re‑recording session. He later described the remake with Run-DMC as “a high point” for Aerosmith and “an artistic spark” during a period when their career had stalled. Perry’s solo wasn’t just a performance; it was part of a cultural moment that helped relaunch Aerosmith and blasted hip-hop into the mainstream. Well, not the mainstream of my teenage circle of friends. It would be some time before we came around to accept...and now love...the collaborated version between two future Hall of Fame groups.